Mark Zuckerberg Wants To Bring Internet To Refugees

As many have probably heard by now, there is a refugee crisis happening in Europe at the moment where refugees are fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria. Some of these refugees have ended up in camps where they are given the most basic of necessities, such as food and water, but now it seems that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to give them internet access as well.

According to a report from the New York Times, Zuckerberg stated that he plans on launching a project in which it would provided internet to refugees staying in these camps. He claims that providing access to the internet is an enabler of human rights and is also considered to be a force for peace, although he does admit that it isn’t 100% altruistic as he expects that providing internet will also draw users onto Facebook.

Unfortunately Zuckerberg did not detail how his project would go about providing internet access to these refugees, but his Internet.org initiative has been in the works for some time now. One of the ways they plan to distribute internet access around the world would be to have a drone fly unpiloted around the world where it would be able to beam down WiFi signals to areas with limited connectivity.

In some ways this reminds us of Google’s Project Loon where the company’s plans is to have balloons floating around in the skies, thus providing similar internet access to areas where connectivity is limited or unavailable due to the lack of an infrastructure.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Web
Tags: Facebook